phpTemplates appeared in 2012 as an attempt to lift one of the limitations of traditional MODX development: the mandatory binding of the frontend to the internal MODX template syntax and parser.

The component allowed a static MODX template to be executed as a regular PHP file. Such a file could act as a controller, use full-featured PHP, and pass data to any external template engine — such as Smarty or Twig.

What mattered here was not the ability to write PHP in the template itself, but the freedom to choose the presentation layer. MODX retained control over resources and the application, but the frontend was no longer required to be built exclusively on chunks and MODX tags.

In practice, Smarty became the main template engine in this architecture. Therefore, modxSmarty later covered the most in-demand use case directly, and phpTemplates gradually lost its standalone significance. Nevertheless, it worked and served as an important stage in the evolution of this approach.

phpTemplates is part of the broader Fi1osof component ecosystem. The history of the component is described in a 2012 publication: https://habr.com/ru/articles/160797/